“A Song of My Sons”

The following passage displays an essay that I’ve recently viewed. My son, ‘Gregory S. Boulware’ wrote this piece March 23, 1997. It’s an essay assignment from one of his English courses. It so moved me that I was inspired to put it to the post and share it with you.

Enjoy…

“My Brother and I”

By

Gregory Stuart Boulware

My brother and I are four years apart, I being the eldest. If you were to look at us together, immediately you would notice that we don’t look much alike; looking at pictures from our earlier years, we even today have difficulty telling each other apart. Seeing us together most would assume that we have nothing in common because we act and do a lot of things differently. Sure we have our different characteristics that make us different as individuals, but we are very much the same a heart.

There are a lot of obvious things that are different about us such as; the way we dress. My brother dresses in a casual fashion that is comfortable to him. He doesn’t care what someone thinks of how he dresses or what type of clothes he’s wearing, as long as he likes it that’s all that matters. I tend to be more materialistic, wearing all the brand name clothes and keeping up with today’s fashion as best as possible. I’m comfortable with the way I am, but I wish that I was more like my brother in that sense.

Another obvious difference is our personalities. My brother is very quiet and keeps to himself a lot. He doesn’t speak up much and doesn’t demand much if any attention at all. He’s got a quiet sense of humor which can be very funny at times. Now, don’t get me wrong; just because he’s quiet doesn’t mean he can’t be loud, he has his days just as everyone does. I tend to be the more vocal, upbeat one, which is good, but sometimes being vocal and kind of loud can hurt more than it helps. Nevertheless that’s how I am.

My brother’s favorite thing to do is play video games, Nintendo, Gameboy, Genesis, and any other system he can get his hands on. My favorite things to do are play sports, Football and Basketball. Though we have different favorite activities, we love to do our favorite things together and personally I can’t think of a better person to do my favorite thing with.

One of our favorite things to do is to annoy each other, but that’s probably all siblings. He knows just the right buttons to push to get me aggravated. Sometimes he really urks me and then sometimes he doesn’t really bother me at all, and that’s when it’s my turn to bother him. Annoying each other is like some kind of unwritten brotherly law, it just has to be done.

Another thing we share and take great pride in is our names, we both received names from our father. I being the first born received my father’s first name, ‘Gregory’ and my brother being born last has my father’s middle name, ‘Vernon.’We both are proud of and honored to have any part of our father’s name, who is as good a man as any that walk this Earth.

One thing that we definitely have in common is cartoons, we both love cartoons. Getting up on Saturday mornings and watching all the cartoons on T. V. has been something that we’ve shared for as long as we both can remember. He’s got his favorites and I’ve got mine, but we enjoy watching them together.

My brother and I don’t always get along, but then what brothers do? We’re both different and being brothers we can incorporate those differences into each others lives to make each of us better. The biggest thing that we have in common is each other and 'Our Parents' (Gregory and 'Ginny' Virginia) and if we stick together…We Always Will.